Negative Information
Categories: Metrics
Our cousin Phoebe is trying to buy a house, but she just can’t seem to get approved for a loan. She wants us to try and help her figure it all out, so we ask to see a copy of her credit report. “Oof,” we say, looking at all of the late payments and delinquent accounts on the report. “Big oof,” we say when we see that there are also a bankruptcy and foreclosure on there.
This kind of “negative information”—stuff on our credit report that lowers our credit score—can seriously impact our ability to get credit, whether we’re talking about opening a new credit card at Target or, like Phoebe, securing a home loan.
Negative information will eventually drop off our credit report, much like speeding tickets drop off our driving record. But it can take a long time, especially if we’re talking something big like a bankruptcy or foreclosure (they can hang around for seven to ten years, depending). If we ever find ourselves in a Phoebe-like situation, it is very much worth it to work with the credit bureau to see if we can get any of that bad press removed. If the info is wrong, or if it refers to a situation we’ve already corrected (i.e., we had a seriously delinquent account a while back but we’ve paid it off in full), then we can sometimes get those items taken off the report, which will raise our credit score. Will it raise it enough to get us the credit or loan we long for? Maybe, maybe not. But either way, it’s definitely worth trying to clean it up as much as we can…and try to avoid incurring any more negative information in the future.
